What Entrepreneurs Can Learn from Influence Is Your Superpower
Running a business means asking for things constantly — funding, a bigger contract, a partnership, a customer's trust — and every one of those asks can be turned down in public, in writing, or in a room full of people you need to keep impressing. Many founders quietly narrow what they ask for so they can protect their sense of momentum, then wonder why growth stalls. The habits in this book are aimed at exactly that trap: treating "no" as data instead of a verdict, and using whatever pull you've built to actually help the people you're trying to reach.
The whole book, compressed
This edition works through 4 core lessons — take them one at a time, not all at once.
What's different for your conditions
Tap whichever ones sound like you. Nothing here is sent or saved — it's just for your own noticing.
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The core lessons, applied to you
Rethinking what a "no" means when you pitch
Founders tend to treat each rejected pitch as proof the idea is broken, when it's often just proof that this particular person, at this particular moment, wasn't the right fit.
A founder pitches five investors, gets five declines, and quietly shelves the product line for six months instead of pitching five more — never learning that three of the five said no because of timing, not merit.
After every pitch that gets turned down, write one line on the actual stated reason (not your guess at the real reason) before you decide what to change.
Making the ask a daily habit, not a special event
The more often you ask for smaller things — a warm intro, fifteen minutes of feedback, a vendor discount — the less any single ask carries your whole ego, and the better you get at reading what actually moves people.
A founder saves up all their asking energy for the "big" quarterly investor meeting and freezes when it doesn't go well, because they haven't practiced asking anywhere else.
Pick one small, low-stakes ask to make every day this week — a discount, an introduction, a piece of feedback — purely to build the muscle, separate from anything mission-critical.
Earning trust with customers and partners before you need it
People back founders they believe actually care about the outcome, not just the close, so curiosity about a customer's real problem does more for a deal than any pitch polish.
A founder spends a whole sales call describing features instead of asking the prospect what's actually breaking in their business, and the prospect leaves feeling sold to rather than understood.
In your next customer or investor conversation, ask two real questions about their situation before you say anything about your product.
Using your growing influence to lift others
As your company gains traction, your word starts to open doors — for early employees, for other founders, for customers who need something you can help solve. Building the habit of using that leverage to advocate for others, not just to close your next round, is what turns influence into something people trust long after the ask is over.
Startup urgency can tempt you to lean on your growing reputation to pressure a "yes" rather than earn it, especially when a deal is close and the runway is short — the steadier move is to keep asking honestly and let the relationship, not the deadline, do the persuading.
Name one thing, honestly
Which ask have you avoided making because you already decided how it would go?
Good. Now look back at the "Try this" line under whichever lesson feels most connected to what you just wrote, and treat that as this week's actual assignment — not all 4 at once.
The practices from this edition
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Run this for seven days
In your next customer or investor conversation, ask two real questions about their situation before you say anything about your product.